I am too much and yet still far too empty. I hate that society has made hugs a greeting: too informal and much too insincere. I need a real hug, one that is open and secure. I want to hide under someone's wings. I want a hug, the kind where the tears can fall quietly onto their shoulder like the first snowflakes daintily slipping to the ground. I want to be held: I'm so cold, and yet not the type a jacket can fix. I long for closeness. I want someone to look into my eyes, but to really look. I want them to see all that I am and all that I am not yet and all that I will never be. I want to be seen more than anything, the real me, even what I push away from the surface. And I want them to see all of me-- my hurt, my fears, my insecurity-- and I want a hug.

you know I probably loved you

the L word, i know

i dont know enough about love to know for certain

but theres a good chance that word is accurate

i don't care to admit it

especially since its over

i remember what you did

But it feels as though we were a lifetime ago

you don't know that you were the one I wanted to run to

the one I wanted to tell every detail of my life

the one I wanted more than anything to be near

to talk to

its a shame you weren’t a great conversationalist

you don't know I talked about you so much my best friend knew fifty facts about you

and you’ve never even met her

its a pity your friends probably barely knew my name

you don't know i had a special ringtone for you

so i would always know when you texted back

it gives me flashbacks each time i hear someone else play it

you don’t know i knew your long-ass name like my own

each syllable felt like a familiar curve on the road home

i don't even think you know my middle name

or remember my favorite color

its orange

yours is blue

they complement eachother

and i have to pretend i never saved those dumb reels that promised you liked me

because it had our initials together

(you know, we were an uncommon pairing

maybe that was a sign)

you don’t know that I would count down the days til Monday

each and every week

and i would still pretend to hate you

but it was all because of you

i did so many stupid things because of you

i would text first every time

and when you did instead (rare)

my heart would jump

and i would have to play it cool (not very well)

but you called me once

after it was over

but it wasn’t really you

i cant imagine it was by choice

called with a friend who’ll never know

unless you tell her, of course

and we had to pretend

that you had never heard every detail of my life

and that i don’t always know what you are going to say before you can think it

pretending to be strangers, acquaintances

like you don’t know me

i recently broke no contact

it was never a formal no contact

just peace for my mind

the principle of it

asked a question that cycled through my head a million times

finally sent a message I had typed out so many times before

but actually closed my eyes and hit send

i mean i never thought you liked me

you sure as hell never acted like it

i mean yeah in retrospect staying up all night to text me was cute

but you made me feel inferior

stupid

and thats part of why you crossed the line

i don't know if we ended on good terms

i knew later on that my heart wasn’t in most of the texts

and the one thing i liked most

is you would always text goodnight

let me know when the convo was over

and one day i was left on delivered forever

so i‘ll always wonder

did you smile when you saw my notification pop up?

did you like the hundreds of voice memos I sent you?

did you even think about texting me after it was over?

did you know that its better you didn’t because i would have forgiven you?

did you know I was head over heels?

were you?

I asked if we were ever talking

you said

“Kinda”

for an idiot teenage boy, i know that means yes

it means i am the most moronic moron to ever moron

talking is such a simple term

less than a relationship

more than just friends

and i cant lie

sometimes i still wish i could open my phone

and see your name across my lock screen

i dont know why but

if you texted

i would respond

you don’t know my friends said we were talking

that you liked me

and that i never believed them

id say that i didn't think it was a talking stage and you didn’t, so therefore it wasn't

anything

i guess i was wrong

you’ll never know how much i missed you

your quick replies and open ears

ive learned to live without it

but it was nice while it lasted

so i asked

you answered

we kept it quick

you remembered a little more than i thought you did

made me realize i left some kind of impression

i said i‘d see you around

you said

”shore”

i dont know if anything has ever hit me like a train harder

shore is a word i use

it means sure

but more sarcastic

like yeah, right

like im gonna get an 100 on this test

yeah, shore

it marked the end of an era almost

confirmed we are done

we both know it

i dont really use shore anymore

it reminds me of you

i mean you used to make fun of it

but you took it as your own

i’m happy to let you have it

maybe it’ll be the thing you take from me

we all do things a way someone we cared about did

i always fold laundry the way my father does

i‘ll always pick from the back of a grocery shelf like my mother

and draw eyes the way the coolest girl i knew when I was nine did

i‘ll always put on lipstick the way my best friend from middle school does

and from you I don’t know

maybe ill take the way you slide your glasses up your nose

or how you shake out your legs after you stand up

or maybe ill take the way your eyes gleamed when you looked at me

or maybe the things that remind me of you:

self checkouts, the Dodgers, haircuts, Carol G, flipping quarters off your thumb, liquid Tylenol, this hideous teal color that did not go with your coloring at all

as much as we weren’t great

i think i’ll take your awareness, knowing that people like me more than they seem

you know, you suck, but you give good advice

secretly i wish we were still friends

i hope we’ve both matured enough

because while i don’t feel anything anymore i still wish you were in my life

i thought you would come to my sports games

because you made a promise late one summer night

but it was over

and it'd be weird to invite you

i knew you for years

and while you were never my favorite until last summer

i miss talking to you

i miss that you’re an idiot

i miss telling you about my life

and you know, its been over for a while

its a year since I sent you that first text

and we pretended it wasn’t awkward

even though it was

and now im up at 2 am

typing this in the dark

wondering if you would do the same

and we were never together

so there’s nothing to mourn

but ive thought about us for longer then we ever talked

i feel better almost

knowing you must have felt something too

and it wasn’t all in my head

you know that was my worst fear

that i hallucinated all of it

told it wrong to my friends

and there was never anything in the first place

you don’t know i lost all my photos of you a few months back

new phone

it was already long over

but i can admit

when id miss you id pull them up

or our old text messages

and think about what we were and how we were

you know I may be glad they’re all gone

forced me to move on

i have to guarantee my friends that you aren’t chopped

but i think it made recovery easier for me

i think recovery is the right word

i feel like a cliche, like i finally get the words of all the love songs

i craved the dopamine and excitement of talking to you like a drug

and there’s only one way to get sober

to stop

the last evidence of you other than memories and stories are wiped from existence

you know i still tell people about you

but now when you’re

just some guy i know

there‘s layers behind it

resentment, humor, loneliness, appreciation and forgiving

we have our history and i am fine to leave it as history

will i still remember you in a year? five? twenty?

perhaps i never really meant it before now

but you are just some guy

ive received my closure

i dont know how to feel

i feel like i want more

to get answers for more questions

i thought i would feel better

but im up between the hours where night embraces the day

i usually sleep like a baby

when i wake up i wonder if this will all still hold true

Each day I wake up with a thousand words, ideas, memories, possiblities within my brain, a hollow prison, inescapable. Sometimes I wish for a jailbreak: to say what I shouldn’t, to think thoughts that betray my existence, to slam my head against a wall until my teeth shatter.

Imagine a needle going through your eye. Piercing the surface leaving a crisp puncture. Through your iris mixing red into your chocolate brown, or ocean blue, or however the fuck I’m supposed to describe green. Is it even red? How far do you have to go? Does your eye ooze like jello or is it more like a grape?

Each and every aspect of human life is specific and carefully curated for a reason. We exist due to a million coincidences all coming together. Our planet, our galaxy, us as people. So why do I feel like I have to mess it up? You know when something is too perfect? Why do you just want to knock everything over? Why must it be ruined?

I wish you goodbye my dear

perhaps you thought you had it figured out

until the prospect of glory shone before your eyes

and you began to rip yourself to pieces

building a staircase to approval you were desperate to climb

I wish you happiness and health

I wish you good fortune and understanding of yourself

but most of all

I wish myself care and attention from those who truly matter

I wish better than your affection's tatters

I wish you good riddance love

you deserve her

you don't know who she is yet

she hasn't walked into your life yet

at least you won't think so

fate is uncertain, a path of mysteries that develop perfectly

each strangely shaped seemingly random piece

falling into place oh-so exquisitely

she's caring

proud to be yours

ultra-intuitive

never hurts your feelings

funny, sure, but thinks you're the most hilarious thing to walk the earth

tells you everything

and you remember all of it

talks but she's okay with silence

you like silence

you find it comforting

whether she's like you or completely different is still yet to be discovered

left up in the air

she speaks quietly when she's serious

uses her head

she looks at you like a muse

she inspires you to wake up every morning

she's cool with being cringe

you like slow-burn

best friends slowly developing feelings

calling all night

the way your legs touch and she doesn't pull away

the way her hand rests in the crook of your elbow

the way she runs to you first

both of you with secret knowing smiles on your faces

knowing you've found your person

realizing you can tell her

both with a secret

but when you call to confess

she says

'i like you too'

or maybe she calls

gives you a gushing explanation

everything she loves about you

the way you always notice when someone's down

the way you care enough to know the smallest details

the way you aren't ever embarrassed of yourself or your ideas

the way you don't pretend, ever

and you say

'finally'

she will appear only when the time is right

life creates destiny when ready

and promise you

she'll be there waiting for you

Mirror mirror on the wall

who is the fairest of them all?

not you my queen

for your soul is hideous

it bares scars from long ago

wounds barely masked with bandages of feigned confidence

pockmarks of envy and inability to love unconditionally

gashes of hatred

bruised with insecurity

for you shall never be the fairest

but dear mirror

i try

im a good person

dont actions outweigh thoughts?

i raise a daughter, treat her as my own

teach her not to make my mistakes

let her remain unblemished by the evils of the world

i swallow resentment

and i try to heal my soul

but much as i cannot will broken bones to heal

i cannot will my soul to become whole again

for it is damaged

i am damaged

nevertheless

the fairest is a pure soul

one who does not make mistakes

one who has remained good throughout

one who has never strayed from the path of righteousness

one whose mind is carefree and innocent

weightless conscious

not like you my queen

never you my queen

for you are damaged

broken

hefty but of no substance

your actions are for naught

to be the fairest

all must fail

the good must be erased

green must be violet

the sun must stop rising

the sky will snow a sheet of red not white

and the world must be hit with a landslide and tip upside down

until then you my queen cannot

i feel like i could watch us back like a tape

uncertainty turned to friendship to an unbreakable bond back to strangers

and this time of year i begin to miss you again

there are so many this is adressed to

so many this applies to

one after another

each a former holder of the title

my favorite person

i begin unsure

a stranger

friend of a friend

a little wary

but we become friends

one became like my sister

her house became a second home

i could tell her anything

i would kill for her

she had her flaws

but i could look around them

it ended in a big betrayal

disgust

a few years of learning to live without each other

learning to find others to lean on

someone who wouldn't embarrass me to make herself look better

someone who wasn't so desperate to get away

someone who could look me in the eye when she called me her best friend

she said i was her favorite person first

but even though i never said it

im the only one who actually meant it

and she left my life

i wave when i see her

we went for boba once

but we'll never be what we were

and it still hurts years later

one allowed me to become his confidant, his advisor

we laughed a lot

i would help him with his crazy schemes for popularity

i never realized that it meant casting me aside

i don't think he ever achieved it though

he kept wanting to date different girls

use them

it weirded me out

but i knew they would never like him

so i never said anything

usually im the talker

and whoever else would be my advisor

tell me i was being stupid

but he was the loud one of the two of us

we got asked if we were dating a lot

but i never saw him romantically

just as a soul

someone i loved being around

we would call every night

until it was my turn to ask him for advice

he interrupted

i lied

begged others to cover for me

and we were never the same

i texted a couple times

but never the same

i hope he's doing well

his birthday just passed

one became someone to lean on

he was the one i wanted to run to

one to tell every detail about myself

but he would never remember any of it

he never cared about me as much as i did him

i was the talker

he was boring

obnoxious

lame

insecure and arrogant

immature

but i liked talking to him

and he would listen

and we were more than friends

but less than anything more

to be honest i thought he was attractive at first

that weird painful stage

when you can't stop talking to someone

and then they're gone

when they say absolutely disgusting things

you can live through it

he made me feel small and stupid

i can't live with that

when they slowly disappear from your life

it hurts so much more

i had a special ringtone for just him

it has since been retired

hes just a guy who knows so much more about me than he should

i hope he finds growth

i hope he learns and betters himself

i remember each and every one of you

every moment

remembering that you were my favorite person

the reason i got out of bed in the morning

i hope i was yours

i wish you all well

its not like we grew apart

it always ends in explosion

anger

betrayal

stangers

you left barbs in my heart and soul

my ability to let people in

my trust

my belief in humanity

and theres a hole shaped like each of you in my head

and no matter how much i try to fill it

it wont go away

i learned from each of you

from the first:

how to talk

how letting go was okay

how to be loyal

how to have fun

from the second:

how to live

how to tolerate

how to move on

how to be brave

from the third:

how to have will

how to know when to stop

how to not morph into something i despise

i appreciate you all

i would be lying if i said i hate you

i guess we just aren't the same people as when i knew you

now you are all just someone i used to know

someone who i let in once

someone who lost the keys

i genuinely loved you once

but now you are

the same as a stranger

but yet so much more

i hate my best friend's boyfriend

like i don't really know him on a deep level

but i hate him

he was just whatever for a while

he seems boring

really boring

vanilla through and through

and shes so funny

so exciting

so hot fudge brownie mint chip with whipped cream and a cherry on top

like he was just a brick placed on her back

dragging her to drown

i figured it was an opposites-attract thing

if she was happy i would keep my two sense to myself

then he made her cry

he lied

he's her first boyfriend

she was so excited

he told her she was his first relationship

maybe he wanted her to feel safer

maybe he wanted to relate to her better

but he lied

and lemme tell you she found out

these shitty sophomores told her

gloating

called her a whore

and they broke up

for like a month

then i had to hear his name

over and over again

back together

and i had my doubts

my mother says

fool me once shame on you

fool me twice shame on me

i don't go near liars

i don't let people make my friends cry

you ever watch someone drop a glass mug?

you know its going to shatter

but its already on its way to the floor

there's nothing to do

but watch it break

she's my best friend

and now she's so boring

like him

she literally can't talk about anything

and she just acts like him

and thats a bad thing lemme tell you that

she deserves so much better

he literally never talks about her

and she exclusively hangs out with his friends

but none of us have really ever met him

he abandons her for his friends at the drop of a hat

but she puts him above everyone and everything

they're the kind of couple

where everyone knows shes settling

and ask

how he got her

not to be shallow

but hes ugly too

hes dumb too

not like cute adorable dumb

like dumb where you want to slap him

he asked me what lice was yesterday

keep in mind

he treats her a far throw from good

like he doesn't care

he doesn't care about anything she likes

how could anyone not care when she cares so much

shes the kind of person who goes 110

she doesn't halfass on people she cares about

shes the kind of person to go get your favorite candy on a whim because you mentioned it in passing once

shes the kind of person to throw herself into your problems

she won't cuss anyone out but she'll give you advice to handle it adequately

shell guarantee you that a boy who has no interest in you

'wants you so bad'

she doesn't even know the word jealousy

she genuinely wants you to be happy

but she told me she thinks they're getting married

but everyone knows she's too good for him

everyone

i know it makes me a bad person

but i hope he fucks up

so she'll break up with him

i mean she's happier in a relationship

but he sucks

like genuinely sucks so much

i think she likes the idea of him

a boyfriend

not him as a boyfriend

maybe i don't 'get the hype'

but he just isn't great

and she deserves so much more

than a guy who doesn't care

I was obsessed with color as a kid

I wanted to make as many as possible and see everything

I never really got the idea that some colors are ugly

like yea they can look ugly together or on someone

bland maybe

but by itself

not really ugly

you know how dogs can only see blue and yellow because they have less color receptors?

turns out we’re like that too

some species can see so much more than use

ill never be able to see so much

you know how colorblind people see red and green as grey?

what if im like that?

Red and green, blue and orange

what if they aren’t just brown but really colors I just cant see?

A million colors that can’t even be named

My eyes just won’t let me

so many things are just impossible

Everyone just tells me to try harder

no matter how hard I try I can only see what I can see

id like to tell you that I’m getting better

that I‘ve moved on

that I change dreams

that I’ve accepted reality

that I’ve settled

but its more like

I’m haunted by what can never be

are humans inherently good or evil?

those who say good are naive

they hope for a better world

they say babies are all born pure and innocent

those who say evil are cynical

they want the world to match their perception of it

the correct answer is neither

babies are born pure yes, but not pure anything

think about how much media there is on not killing babies

characters in movies trying to kill baby Hitler, just to change their minds at the last second

Odyseuss slaughtering an infant for its potential

people are born a true neutral

its just potential and circumstance that veer any which way

the rest is what they learn from the world

evils mold people

it makes them cold and hard and believe that people all live with hate in their hearts

its the way we cope without recognizing that we ourselves lean more towards evil

it justifies us

those faced with evil who view humanity as good are an enigma

how do they face so much loss and horror and believe in innate goodness?

they allow experiences to make them stronger

muscle, not iron

good and evil don't really mean anything

they're just words we made up to demonize some and appraise others

some deserve to be looked up to and others deserve to be condemned

but to call an entire species good or bad is quite another

our brains are too complex for most of us to be completely one or the other